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How to Use Storybooks in Speech Language Intervention
Reduce Speech Therapy Planning Time
Planning for intervention can sometimes take longer than the sessions themselves. By dedicating
yourself to literacy-based intervention, you will find that there is a whole arsenal of materials and
resources already available in your schools to save you massive amounts of time and simultaneously
support the other professionals you work with. Here are five tips to enable you to quickly produce
high-impact therapy materials to support the storybook that you are using.
1. Get buy‐in from teachers
Is this your car? If so, know that as speech
pathologists, we don’t have to do this anymore!
Every week, teachers have materials, pages, and
storybooks from the library already set out and
planned. Borrow from them to reduce speech
therapy planning time and the children will flourish
when they can practice their communication using
the same familiar book or object back in the
classroom.
How important is it to you that you choose what you work on in therapy? I am not talking about the
specific goals but the content. Does it really matter if we are working on /s/ words out of a random
book or /s/ words that are about animals or some other academic topic? Choose the book or story
that the teacher is focusing on in her classroom.
If we contact teachers and focus on their curriculum topics, then the child has a way to:
Practice what you teach him
Show off or interact with peers
Practice their words on homework with parents
If we choose the topic that the teacher is working on, then she or he feels that:
Their work is important
We understand what is going on in the classroom
The law (IDEA 2004) states that we need to give access to the general education curriculum.
By using books that are already being used in the classroom we can both create great
therapy and abide by the law of the land. Easily find out what teachers are working on:
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